Local contractors vie for Golden Meadow installment job

HOUMA – Bids open today on construction of the long-delayed lock on Bayou Lafourche in Golden Meadow, and levee officials say the work can’t start soon enough.

Due to many days of strong south and southeast winds in the Lafourche Parish, the levee district had to close the lock to prevent flooding in Golden Meadow for 22 days in September, said Windell Curole, general manager of the South Lafourche Levee District. Closing the lock protects cities inside the ring-levee system but delays boat traffic traveling down Bayou Lafourche.

This month, the floodgates in Golden Meadow and Larose were closed for a total of eight days.

“And if you’ll note, today is only Oct. 8,” Ronald Callais, president of the South Lafourche Levee Board, said Monday.

The Golden Meadow lock has provided one of the most-dramatic demonstrations of the problems plaguing post-Katrina hurricane-protection projects in the area.

The lock’s $7 million installation cost was fully covered until 2005, when the price tag skyrocketed to $20 million. Officials had no choice but to leave the finished 3,000-pound lock unused and parked on a barge while they scrambled to make up the difference.

Soaring construction costs and scarce state and federal money have crippled many projects that seemed to be on track before the storm. Officials blame the abundance of recovery projects and shortage of experienced contractors available to do them.

The state eventually picked up the $13 million tab with some of the $200 million budget surplus that has left Louisiana’s coffers flush.

The floodgates have been repeatedly closed because Barataria Bay, which borders the eastern side of south Lafourche, leaves the parish extremely vulnerable to wind-pushed water from the south and east, Curole said.

Levee officials must close the floodgate when water levels approach 1 foot above normal elevations to avoid flooding in Golden Meadow, he said. When water levels are only slightly higher than average, the district will open the floodgate every hour to allow some boat traffic through. But for some days, including last Friday, when residents experienced flooding in some areas of south Terrebonne, the levee district must close the gate for extended periods of time, halting boat traffic on the busy waterway.

“These floodgate closures are killing us,” Curole said. “But once we get that lock in place, we can end these delays for boat businesses.”

The district has had to open the flood gate so many times in September and October that it is now seeking to hire a full-time operator to do the job until the lock installation is finished next year.

The coming winter should lower the water level in south Lafourche somewhat, Curole said. Northern winds carried by cold fronts will push waters back toward the Gulf, he said, but officials don’t know exactly how long that will take.

“Weather is seldom average around here,” he said.

Curole said he hopes to start work on the Golden Meadow lock as early as late November.